White Grub Management in lawns - You Have Choices

I wanted to write a blog entry about the efficacy of skunks as white grub control. I’ve heard they can do a pretty good job, but oh, they do make such a mess! But while looking for information on the efficacy of skunk-feeding, I happened to stumble upon an interesting fact sheet on grub control from the Plant and Insect Diagnostic Clinic at Iowa State University.

There are some things in here that might not be entirely accurate or up to date for Pennsylvanians. Conditions are a little different in Iowa, and some new active ingredients for grub control have come on the market. So be sure and read and follow label instructions.

But I still like this fact sheet.

I like it for its section on “extent of damage due to white grubs” which tells you what to expect, and what it’s going to look like.

I like it for its discussion of using IPM (Integrated Pest Management) techniques for white grub control in your lawn. Using IPM is difficult when controlling white grubs because of the high value of turf grass, both monetary and aesthetic/emotional. Also, monitoring can be a pain. And people are afraid of grub damage. The point being that sometimes chemical treatments are applied that are not necessarily needed.

The authors describe the plusses and minuses of three grub-management philosophies:

The Golf Course Approach – You don’t want damage. You want to be a sure as you can be that it won’t happen. You’ll probably want to use one of the “preventive” type treatments.

Wait-and-see Approach – You decide to wait and see if a problem develops that season, and to depend on a “quick-acting” grub control method after this year’s generation’s eggs have hatched in late summer.

The Do-nothing approach – many years you might not have a grub problem anyway. You let the damage happen and repair the lawn on the years when it does.

There’s some sense to all this. Not everybody feels the same way about their lawn. There is no one lawn management plan that’s best for everybody.

It’s fall. And ticks are still out there!

This is an adult black-legged ,or “deer” tick. The picture shown above is what it looks like when it hasn’t fed yet, and therefore isn’t engorged. It is red and dark brown and about 1/8 inch long. The adult stage is the life stage most likely to bite people in fall. It also is the stage most likely to be carrying lyme disease, since it has already fed twice, and therefore has had two chances to pick up disease organisms.

Here is what the adult black-legged tick looks like after it has fed and become engorged. It’s about 10 mm, or 4/10 inch long. It becomes much larger than the oft-quoted "poppy seed" size of black-legged or "deer" ticks. This is a preserved specimen. A live one on you or your dog is more of a grayish color.

Folks sometimes ask about having a tick tested for disease agents. There are reasons that this may be done, but often this is of limited usefulness in disease diagnosis. If you find a black-legged tick on yourself, you haven’t necessarily been infected. Not all black-legged ticks are themselves carrying infections. Research is showing that about 20% of our local black-legged tick population is infected with lyme disease spirochetes, and smaller percentages are infected with the other diseases they carry. Even when infected, the tick must be attached for at least 24 hours in order to transmit lyme disease, and 12 to 24 hours to transmit human anaplasmosis.

Ticks crawl. They cannot fly or jump. They wait on vegetation for an animal or person to brush by, they latch on, and then crawl upwards to find a place to bite. It is important to protect yourself from being bitten by ticks when you’re going into brushy, woodsy areas where higher tick populations are likely. It is recommended that you:

Wear long pants and long sleeve shirt, socks and shoes. Your clothing should be light-colored so ticks can be easily spotted.

Tuck your pant legs into your socks or boots, and tuck your shirt in so the upward-crawling ticks are less likely to crawl up inside your clothing. You can tape clothing at your ankles and wrists for extra protection.

Use insect repellent containing DEET on clothes and on exposed skin (other than the face), or treat clothes (especially pants, socks, and shoes) with permethrin, which kills ticks on contact. Follow label instructions closely.

Consider simply avoiding areas known to have a lot of ticks.

Adult black legged ticks infect people and pets less often than the much smaller nymphal stage does. That's partly because the adults are bigger and more likely to be found and removed. Be sure and inspect and remove ticks from your clothing and your body after being outdoors. Inspect the dog too. Remove attached ticks with tweezers, grasping the tick as close to the skin surface as possible and pulling straight back.

Spotted Lanternfly Meeting on October 27 in Bally

Pennsylvanians interested in learning more about the spotted lanternfly are invited to a public meeting in Berks County on Oct. 27. The event will take place from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Goodwill Fire Company, 537 Chestnut Street in Bally.

The spotted lanternfly, Lycorma delicatula, is an invasive insect that was first discovered in Berks County in September 2014. The insect has the potential to destroy high-value crops, including grapes, tree fruits and hardwood lumber.

Representatives from Penn State Extension, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, the United States Department of Agriculture and Kutztown University will provide information regarding the eradication efforts to date and will answer questions regarding the related quarantine order.

In an effort to keep the insect from spreading, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture has quarantined the following municipalities as of Sept. 13, 2016:

Montgomery County: Douglass, New Hanover, Upper Hanover and West Pottsgrove townships and the boroughs of East Greenville, Pennsburg and Red Hill.

Spotted lanternflies have been found in wooded areas and residential landscapes, especially where there are tree-of heaven (Ailanthus altissima) trees. Intentional movement of any of the life stages of the spotted lanternfly is prohibited.

The quarantine order, which has been supported by the affected communities, means that any item that could hold any life stage of this insect may not be moved outside the quarantined area without inspection and compliance. This includes firewood, vehicles, outdoor household items and any items stored outside during the fall, as well as building materials and plants or plant parts.

This meeting is open to the public and pre-registration is not required. Questions regarding the Oct. 27 event can be directed to Emelie Swackhamer at exs33@psu.edu.

When establishing turfgrass, mix in the soil amendments.

My caller’s first attempt at redoing that bare section of his lawn didn’t work well, and he’s now wondering if it’s too late to try again and plant more grass seed.

I don’t know if it’s too late or not. Normally in our area of the country you try to get your grass seed planted before about October 15. But the weather this fall has been pretty warm. Maybe the really cold weather will hold off a bit and he’ll have a little more time. I can’t be sure because I’m not clairvoyant, but it’s probably worth the risk of planting a little late. Grass doesn’t mind a little frost, the area to be done is small, and grass seed isn’t that expensive.

And he’s ready, he says. His site is all prepared - the top soil is on.

Ah - but has that top soil been mixed in with the soil below? Usually the answer is “no”.

Topsoil is only one of the choices for soil amendments, and it might not be the best one he could choose. Some type of compost or other organic matter often is better. Applying a layer of the amendment on top of the problem soil as a medium to start the grass seed may not give the desired results. The seed will probably germinate and may even grow for a while, but the roots may not penetrate into the poorer layer of soil beneath the “starter” layer applied. When the first drought comes next summer, the grass may die.

For best results, choose your soil amendments wisely and mix them into the top 4 to 6 inches of soil.

Raised beds and their soil mix

There are good reasons to consider having raised beds in your garden. The topsoil may have been moved to another spot in the yard, or even removed entirely when the house was built. The soil you have may be quite compacted, clayey, and therefore poorly drained. Perhaps you want to locate your garden in a low area of the yard which might have drainage problems. In rare cases, I’ve even seen raised beds formed or built on to paved areas.

I’m worried, though, because a number of people have come into the office asking about raised beds that are no longer doing well. Some of the folks have the results of a soil test, and the results are showing wild imbalances of soil nutrients. Some of these raised beds never worked well from the very beginning.

When I start asking questions, I often find out that the homeowner thought that the natural soil was so awful that they decided to create their own easier-to-work soil. Maybe they used instructions from off the web, or maybe they went to the store and bought bags of various kinds of “good soil stuff”, and they poured it into the raised bed structure they built and mixed it together. Every so often they might add another bag of organic matter or maybe some compost. Over time, though, things seem to get worse.

I am not an agronomist, and I am not a soil expert, but I’ve sat through enough classes to know that soil chemistry is complex, and that creating a soil mix from scratch is a lot trickier than we might suspect, and probably not for the backyard gardener.

Our native soil – even this clayey, hard, compacted stuff in so many yards in the Lehigh Valley, is basically OK. It may need some organic matter added to make it better for growing plants. It needs a soil test to find out about possible pH problems and nutrient imbalances. But once it’s loosened up and amended it’s a great, probably even essential - and often free - component of your garden or raised bed mixture.

I’d suggest that you take advantage of this wonderful resource. When you build a raised bed and you’re ready to add soil mix, loosen up the soil underneath first and use that as the basis of your soil mix. The height of the raised bed will improve the drainage. The other materials you choose to add will lighten up the soil and make it less sticky. And you will still have the good characteristics of our own soil.

Master Gardeners are volunteers trained by Penn State Extension Horticulture Educators. Once they complete their training, they cooperate with service agencies and community groups on a wide range of gardening projects. Their talents and energies are directed toward providing a link between their community and Penn State Cooperative Extension and Outreach.